


Mimily, Pefzr, and Welcome Home: A Learning Curve

by LearnedFoot



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (it gets fixed), Canon Compliant, Gen, Mentions of Tony Stark's Death, U also makes appearances and is a good bot who deserves love, robot-human friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23503543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/pseuds/LearnedFoot
Summary: Tony wanted to teach Dum-E to write, once.
Relationships: Dummy (Iron Man Movies) & Peter Parker, Dummy (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 17
Kudos: 126
Collections: Robot Rainbow 2020





	Mimily, Pefzr, and Welcome Home: A Learning Curve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fencesit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencesit/gifts).



> A treat for you, because you wanted Tony Stark and robots and that is a good request.

About a month after Tony first got Dum-E up and running, he decided he wanted him to write. It would be a nice flourish on top of the whole project. He toyed with his gripping mechanisms, added extra rotation, then sat him in front of a whiteboard and told him to go.

 _Mimily_ , wrote Dum-E.

“What is that? That’s nothing,” Tony scolded.

Dum-E tried again. _Lifzan_.

“Maybe we’ll give it a few years,” Tony suggested, patting him. “You’ll grow into it.”

\---

He did not grow into it.

 _Hapiars_ , he wrote a few years later. _Cerp Spal_ , a few years after that.

“Have I taught you nothing?” Tony asked, despairing. Not that he’d actually attempted to _teach_ writing—he’d been busy, okay?—but you’d think Dum-E would’ve picked things up from being around the lab. “You’re a disaster.”

Dum-E hung his head. That always made Tony feel vaguely guilty, like a bad dad.

“It’s not your fault,” he conceded. “I might not be enabling you to be your best self.”

\---

He tried, honestly tried to teach him for a week in the early ‘00s.

Okay, a weekend. It was _going_ to be a week, but then Hugh Heffner called about a private party and it became a whole thing. He ended up in Italy. Whatever, shit happens.

By the time he got home, Dum-E had scrawled _Blackina_ three times on the whiteboard. He tilted hopefully at Tony as he stumbled in, half drunk and the rest of the way hungover.

“Still not a thing, buddy,” Tony told him. “Almost a thing, but not actually a thing.”

 _Almost a thing_ was something, though. Enough to think maybe he should pursue it. But then he got another call, this time from Obie demanding he show up to a board meeting in New York the next day, and the whole idea got put on pause, indefinitely.

\---

He forgot to come back to it. In his defense, he was distracted. Sometimes for bad reasons, but also for some very good ones. Saving the world kind of took priority over vanity projects.

\---

Then Peter happened.

\---

“Whoa! Did you know Dum-E can write, Mr. Stark?” Peter exclaimed several months into his actual internship, with such enthusiasm Tony almost soldered his own finger off in surprise.

“Kid, what did I tell you about shouting in the lab?” he asked, putting his tools down. “And no, he can’t.”

“Yeah, he can!” Peter pointed at a whiteboard he had set up near his desk, because apparently writing things down on a physical surface helped him think.

Dum-E was gripping a dry-erase marker defiantly. He’d scribbled something resembling _Pefzr_. 

“I think it’s supposed to be my name,” Peter explained.

“Nearly thirty years, and that’s the best he can do. I don’t think that counts as being able to write.”

Peter considered this with a seriousness Tony had never seen anyone other than himself apply to his bots. Then he gently took the marker from Dum-E’s hand.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he said in a stage whisper, shooting Tony a dirty look over Dum-E’s arm. “He doesn’t always believe in me either. We’ll show him.”

“Insubordination! I can fire you from this internship, you know,” Tony warned. “Technically, I could do that. Back to the streets in your onsie with you.”

Peter flashed a grin, clearly not at all threatened, before returning to his work.

Tony hid his own smile. Yeah, the kid was right: Tony wasn’t going to fire him, no matter how many bots he turned against him.

\---

The one good thing about dying was Tony didn’t have to worry anymore. And then: bam, resurrection, and he had a whole set of new concerns. Morgan and Pepper, of course, and Peter and Happy and Rhodey. But also the bots. Maybe it was stupid, but they were high on the list. Had they been stuck in storage all this time, or worse, tossed aside as useless?

He asked Peter about it, the second time he came to visit as Tony recovered in the hospital. To his relief, the question was met with a grin.

Turns out the bots had a new home in Peter’s private uptown lab—lab and bots both serving as a high school graduation gift from Pepper and Happy (“And you,” Peter added. “Ms. Potts said it’s what you would’ve wanted”). They live there now, and help Peter with his engineering homework.

When Tony was strong enough to walk, he went to visit them. They were exactly the same. Well, almost. Peter was better about keeping them clean, and it looked like he’d given them a few mobility upgrades, too. Of course. Tony had always known the kid would win them over in the end.

“And look!” Peter said, nearly vibrating with excitement as he grabbed a whiteboard. “Dum-E, show him!”

Slowly, Dum-E picked up a marker. Even more slowly, he brought it to the board. His letters were shaky, pace crawling, but in the end, the message was clear, even spelled correctly: _Welcome back, Tony_.

Peter’s smile faltered when he turned and caught Tony wiping his eyes on the inside of his sleeve.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“God, kid, no.” Tony took a deep breath, getting the tears under control. “No, this is perfect.”

He gave Peter’s shoulder a squeeze to prove he meant it, then crossed the lab, running one hand up U’s body. “Good to see you.”

Then, Dum-E. His first creation. Softly, he gripped his arm.

“Knew you could do it, bud,” he said. “Thank you for the welcome. It’s good to be home.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feedback is loved <3


End file.
